'Star Wars' box office: 'Last Jedi' has a key advantage over 'Force Awakens'

Well, this is interesting. Morning Consult, a privately-held technology and media company specializing in online survey and market research, just dropped a bunch of poll results around the Star Wars movies. You can read the results on their actual page, but I wanted to point out one very interesting nugget. To the extent that the 2,200 adults polled in the survey represent a national consensus, Princess Leia is the most popular character, followed by Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca, Yoda, RD-D2 and only then Han Solo.

Yes, there is a clear preference for the original trilogy and original trilogy characters, to the point where John Boyega's Finn is the highest rated Force Awakens/Rogue One character at 13th place, while Daisy Ridley's Rey is less popular than Boba Fett. But let's look at those top five again. Because I would argue that these polling results refute a rather large bit of so-called conventional wisdom about what kind of characters should be headlining would-be blockbusters.

12th December 2017